IDF Intelligence believes Iraq provided support and assistance for the terror attacks in the US carried out by Imad Murniye, head of Hizbullah’s attack operations outside Lebanon, and Iman Zwairi, a confidant of Osama bin Laden, who is due eventually to succeed him, the Internet edition of Foreign Report reported yesterday.

The report adds that Israel warned its allies, including the US and European countries, of a major attack, based on a meeting between Murniye and an agent of his in Germany. It adds that Iraqi Intelligence mediated between Iraq and Afghanistan, made the contac with Zwairi and through him with Murniye, and even financed the operation.
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So much for Israel being behind this, it looks the usual cast of characters.

one thing people need to understand. Even if Isreal is behind this, it's not as if Hussein & Bin Laden don't need to be taken care of. If it turns out that either of those two have been framed, well I severley doubt America will shed any tears at their demise. What to do about Isreal would of course be another story.

While I am here pontificating, here is something my wife's sister sent to me...

Dear Colleagues,

As we reflect upon the tragic events of this week and an appropriate "response," I thought you might like to see this letter from my college roommate, Tamim Ansary, who grew up in Afghanistan. I think he offers an interesting perspective on Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan.

Toivo Kallas
Department of Biology & Microbiology

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:14:27 -0700

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage," and he asked, "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."

And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I fervently wish to see those monsters punished.

But the Taliban and bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it.

Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan -- a country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been destroyed. The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They haven't been able to.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.

New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They have already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common causewith the Taliban -- by
raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.

So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die, not kill, that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.

And that is bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. At the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end the West would probably overcome -- whatever that would mean in such
a war -- but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone else?

I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that. That's my humble opinion.

-- Tamim Ansary

Base not your happiness on the deeds of others, for what is given can be taken away. No Hope = No Fear

What did I tell you? Somebody still thinks and has to say that Israel might be behind it.

"Even if Isreal is behind this...

Two things WN700, and they're not an attack or meant to offend you...

1. Stay on the topic, don't try and change it. What you posted, the article, was totally unrelated to what TNNH posted.
2. I don't think anybody will think any lesser of you if you said that Israel was not behind it, or that it wasn't a possibility.

Oh puleeeeeaze, Iraq would never do something like this. Even if Saddam invaded Kuwait, he would never do something like this. Despite all the suffering the sanctions have brought them, have you seen one iraqi terrorist? No!

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Saddam at least gave the bulk of the financial/asset-related support for this attack. We obviously don't know for sure, but I really think this couldn't have happened without the cooperation of a bunch of different entities, be they terrorist organizations or state governments. Considering that Saddam is still in power after an allied invasion and repeated use of force against his country, I bet he feels like he can get away with pretty much anything now.